Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany by Ruth Paget

Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany by Ruth Paget 

Stuttgart is Germany’s richest city. Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars are manufactured here. The city is surrounded by Riesling vineyards. The city’s cash flow is also assured as the home of reasonably priced Ritter-Sport chocolate. 

One of Stuttgart’s star attractions is the Porsche Museum. My husband Laurent and I decided to visit it and contribute to the local economy when we lived in Stuttgart for five years. 

I felt like Laurent was getting to do something he liked as one of our cultural outings. We usually visit lots of castle kitchens and monasteries with pre-Columbian vegetable gardens. I like studying medieval household management, but do recognize that cars make modern life nice, especially in the Western United States. 

We drove our GM product to the Porsche Museum, and had fun walking around the red, white, and yellow race cars in the gleaming white museum. 

Germans make great merchandise, so we headed to the gift shop to make some purchases. We bought USB ports for our computers that had model Porsche cars on their ends and looked through T-shirts, caps cups, and decks of cards with Porsche models as jacks, queens, and kings. 

I thought the T-shirts were informal surveys to see which Porsche models might sell well. 

At home, I made shrimp kebabs with shrimp I had marinated in lemon juice and crushed garlic overnight. 

We ate chic Weihenstephan yogurt as dessert. Weihenstephan is better known for its beer. The monastery brewery was founded in 1040 and has a limited number of other food products for sale in Germany. 

To finish off our meal, we drank smooth Dallmayr coffee from the department store of the same name in Munich. 

I thought the lunch was something a trim and well-off German might like. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Dance Party Fundraising by Ruth Paget

Dance Party Fundraising by Ruth Paget 

One of the quickest ways the Inner-City Youth Tour to China raised money was with dance parties in 1978 – 1979. 

The way this worked was that you paid $5 if you brought something to eat or drink for the party. If you just showed up, you paid $10. Wrists were marked with “paid” stamps like they are at small club shows as a receipt. Homes in Detroit are large. 

You can easily fit 100 people in a living room with a full dining room off the side. We could raise between $500 - $750 in an evening with a dance party – an absolute win-win fundraiser. 

People are not finicky eaters in Detroit. I think the standard party dish is onion dip with Lay’s potato chips and soda. If you make onion dip yourself, it is super cheap. 

Detroit has a huge Eastern European population that came to the city to build cars, which means that sour cream is plentiful and inexpensive in the Motor City. 

The hillbilly contingent to the workforce (including my dad) mixes dry French onion soup mix with sour cream to make onion dip. This is great with plain potato chips or the ones with chives and sour cream. I taught the Puerto Ricans on the tour how to make this. 

Dance parties were a huge hit, because this was the Disco Era when we were raising money to go to China. We danced and sang into the night to Donna Summer, Lionel Richie, Gloria Gaynor, Sister Sledge, Chaka Khan, Santana, and Earth, Wind, and Fire. 

The Inner-City Youth Tour to China did go to China, and the dance alumni of our fundraising efforts went on to make beach parties at Daytona Beach, Florida a huge success, too, I think. 

One of the co-leaders of the youth tour went on to found and edit People en Español as a lasting cultural impact of our fundraising efforts. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Cold Brew and Iced Coffee $ Money Hacks by Ruth Paget

Cold Brew and Iced Coffee $ Hack by Ruth Paget 

Both iced coffee and cold brew are mega money savers, if you make them at home. I let a lot of coffee go cold in Detroit (Michigan) as I watched the news in French that was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Channel (CBC) in Windsor (Canada) just across the Detroit River when I was in high school. (Free French oral comprehension lessons to go with high school French classes.) 

I was teaching myself to like bitter coffee, so I could pass as French in Canada. I thought coffee was bilge, though, compared to tea, especially cold. 

However, I did not want to waste money and throw out the coffee in the pre-microwave era I lived in. (All this money management economics destined my college to be the Austrian School of Economics at the University of Chicago I sometimes think.) 

I knew the Greeks made iced coffee, so I poured the cold coffee over ice and added milk and sugar. That was good and refreshing. I made it summer and winter and still do despite loving Starbucks. 

So, that is how to make inexpensive iced coffee. Cold brew is even simpler. 

I have learned to love coffee now that I am middle-aged. Coffee is even supposed to be good for you now due to its antioxidants. 

Cold brew coffee is now the rage and so easy to make at home. Place 1 or 2 tablespoons of ground coffee in the bottom of a French Press Coffee Pot. Pour in water and let the water stand on the coffee grounds for twelve hours. 

Press down on the grounds with the French Press lid and serve the cold brew over ice. 

I use a Starbucks insulated 3-cup container for this. These recipes are easy and can fit all budgets depending on the coffee you use. Amazon sells Starbucks, Lavazza, and Dallmayr coffee, if you cannot find these items in your area. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Costco Rotisserie Chicken $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget

Costco Rotisserie Chicken $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget 

One of my favorite Saturday lunch meals that I have eaten for decades is a Costco organic Rotisserie Chicken priced at $4.99 for a whole chicken. 

I cut the chicken into 4 portions, which cost approximately $1.25 each. I like to eat this with Korean 90-second microwave rice and baby greens salad – all from Costco. 

This meal is simple, so I jazz it up with a habanero margarita from Total Wine. The money I save on this meal goes towards a baked pasta or a baked enchilada dish for Sunday. 

I drink a red Malbec wine with the pasta or a beer with the enchilada dish. I roughly plan out my weekday breakfasts, lunches, and dinners to stay with three meals and little or no snacking. 

That little $4.99 rotisserie chicken has helped me manage household finances and tastes good. I even cut up the leftover meat and mix it with Caesar Salad (a no-food waste meal). 

(Note: Caesar Salads are also a Costco deli item and have dressing with anchovies in it, which are antioxidants.) 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Costco Pizza $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget

Costco Pizza $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget 

Friday night pizza is very affordable with a pizza from Costco’s food court. 

An 18-inch pizza costs $9.95 for 12 slices. Each slice is 9 inches long and costs .83 cents each. 

Two kinds of pizza are available: a combo with pepperoni, sausage, and vegetables and one with just vegetables, tomato sauce, and cheese. You can request packets of Parmesan cheese and hot pepper flakes to go with the pizza. 

Parmesan has calcium for bones and hot peppers have Vitamin C to strengthen the immune system. 

Currently, the Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes are free, but a small charge for these could be added to a fund for employee raises, for example. These pizzas are especially great for sports teams and sports nights at home. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Costco Turkey-Swiss Sandwich $ Hack by Ruth Paget

Costco Deli Sandwich $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget 

I think the turkey-Swiss sandwich on a butter croissant with a Caesar salad combo box at Costco is a great deal at $10.28, because I can make two lunches out of it. 

The two meals cost $5.14 each. 

Caesar salad dressing uses anchovies, which are antioxidants and have iron. Lemon juice from freshly squeezed lemons has Vitamin C for the immune system. 

Turkey has protein and Vitamin B-6, which helps keep the nervous system and immune system healthy according to the Mayo Clinic. Swiss cheese has calcium in it, which is good for your bones. 

The butter croissant used for bread fills you up, so you can stick to three meals a day to stay trim and maintain weight. 

All those health benefits for $5.14 make the turkey-Swiss sandwich a good deal for me at Costco. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Costco Baked Salmon $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget

Costco Baked Salmon $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget 

I think Costco’s ready-to-bake salmon that comes with three scoops of butter and dill in its deli section is a great deal at $28 for the following reasons: 

I add 2 cans of drained green beans to the salmon to bake for an hour. The cans of green beans are about $1 each. When the salmon is ready to serve, I microwave Korean sticky rice, which costs around $1 a dish, too. All total that is $31 for the 5 servings that I get out of this dish for $6.20 for each serving. 

That price is much less expensive than a restaurant meal, but the real clincher for this Costco dish is that I can have a Habanero Margarita at home that is less expensive than a cantina. 

Salmon has many health benefits besides the good taste. It contains vitamins A, B, and D and the minerals magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, zinc, and selenium. 

In particular, selenium is an antioxidant that removes free radicals that cause cancer from the body. Vitamin A helps with vision, the immune system, and the development of babies in the womb according to www.healthline.com . 

Costco’s salmon is a great deal for Sunday lunch and health benefits. You cannot beat that! 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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